Zero Waste Path
Jim Moore 0:13
Hello, my name is Jim this is my podcast The Bloody Vegans you're very welcome to it. Each week I'll be travelling ever deeper into the world of veganism, discovering along the way a multitude of viewpoints from the political and ethical to the practical. I'll be doing this through a series of conversations, each aiming to further illuminate my understanding, and hopefully yours of all things plant centric and this week is no different. I should tell you before we get going that this episode of the bloody vegans is brought to you by veg one, the nutritional vitamin and mineral supplement designed for vegans by the good folks over at the Vegan Society. It was launched back in 2005. And the keen eyed amongst you will know that in 2021, it had a fantastic plastic free new package added to the product which is wonderful is very in fact is very in keeping with this week's guests who I'll come on to in a moment. Veg one provides nutritional support alongside a healthy and balanced vegan diet. All for an affordable price. A six month supply is going to set you back just 12 pounds 70 So little over two pound a month and it offers you EU nutrient reference values of vitamins B 12, D3, Iodine, Selenium B2, B6 and folic acid a lot of the key ones in there well worth taking a look is chewable affordable and reliable designed to be taken just once a day and available in two wonderful flavours you got black current, and you've got orange is inconvenient is plastic free. And that leads me on to this week's guest. So this week's episode of the bloody vegans brought to you by veggie one. This week's guests are Bianca and Julio the founders of zero waste path who are zero waste path I hear you cry was zero waste path, make cosmetics, everything from shampoos, soaps, and now candles, all kinds of different things that are aiming to be zero waste. All handmade, made sustainably incredible amounts of thought and care and passion put into these products, all made by Bianca and Giulio. And over here in Cambridge, I believe is where they are they are based, although I think they also have an office in the Netherlands to for all you folks over in the EU who are looking to pick up some Zero Waste path products you can do via their website or via various stockists, there'll be links in the show notes if you're interested. But their story is a fascinating one. The the the products themselves are amazing. The ethics behind it are wonderful, and they're just set very sound people I love chatting with Bianca and Giulio. So without further ado, here's a conversation between me and Bianca and Julio from zero waste path.
Giulio, feel awesome to get started with a little bit of your personal journeys into the world of veganism. I don't want you guys first off, it's up to you.
Bianca 3:26
So yeah, we basically moved to the UK in 2016, which is when we moved in together. And so when we moved to the UK, we're already kind of like on our sustainability journey. And so we're starting to cut out cut like animal ingredients. And so already we stopped buying any meat or any meat to cook at home back then. So we weren't fully vegetarian or vegan, we're just kind of like eating mostly plant based and that kind of progressed more and more over the years. And then around two years after that we went fully vegan. The thing about ordering that I think is a little bit different is that because on one side, we had slowly already started having solid silicone products. So like we had vegan cheese for a long time. Oatmeal eggs and things like that. For us, I think that transition was really easy. But also I was having to follow basically what I think what triggered it for me was that I was having to follow kind of nutritional plan to kind of restart a mime. What's the word? My metabolism I was having some issues and so I had an admissions pen, and that pen had a lot of meat and and I was too shy to say anything when he was prescribed. And so for the two months before we went bigger like month and a half I had to buy in crude meat which I wasn't really used to doing so we're still eating it maybe sometimes when going out or when being back Got home. And I remember just going to the supermarket and having to buy these products and hating having to buy them hating having to eat them being super jealous of Julio being able to eat the vegan products. And then in the end I kind of like, because the institution is was initially called and I needed to wait until I could go before I could ask them to make a vegan plan. And then I remember, I think, one week, 10 days before I actually went back to Italy, to meet with them, I just couldn't really do it anymore, I kind of like stopped following the plan and just started only following like the few days or the meals that were fully vegan. So I find it's a little bit funny because I think we wanted to go vegan for longer than we did. We felt a little bit scared about the stigma on vegans, especially initially, where vegans are not seen very well and about telling our family because as you might know, food isn't therapy deal mostly for families, especially for traditions. And so in a way for me going vegan was kind of like, finally can have the products that I want to eat the I can live the lifestyle that I want to live as opposed to having to consume other products or accept eating other products or being with family that don't really feel happy having
Jim Moore 6:19
Bianca Can I Can I just ask the questions just before sorry, Giulio, but I'm just super interested in a couple of minutes. If it's okay, I just wanted to dive into it. So I'm really conscious when I'm in this sort of, I'm in the sort of, quote unquote, vegan bubble, if you lie, I speak to a lot of vegans, you know, with the podcast and so on so forth, and you can sort of you surround yourself with that kind of bubble. Yeah. And as a result, you speak to people from all different walks of life and one of the one of the groups of people often speak to is like nutritionists, doctors, you know, people in that kind of space, who talk about the health benefits of veganism and so on so forth, was there did the plan that you have subscribed, did it did it kind of work and was your was the doctor prescribed it were they at all, open to the idea of you not eating animal products.
Bianca 7:08
So it worked at the time, I think the point was to kind of get me to eat very differently from what I usually ate, not specifically because of the products, but just like having a very different habits so that I can collect shock, my metabolism. And this is a really, really great nutritionist that is Italian, in Italy, of a slightly older generation. And again, there's still a lot of ignorance, I will say about veganism initially. So even when I did go to get them to make a vegan plan for me, they kept insisting but like not even egg, like once a week. And like I understand about they did say I understand about dairy because I think there is really, actually not very good for you. Right? And they're like it's fine about meat. There were a little bit less happy about removing fish and eggs. And I remember that they asked a couple of times. So it's like yes. And for me, it's quite hard sometimes in this situation to like stand my ground because I get a bit shy. So it was a bit awkward. But yeah, initially I think he can ism is still not very widespread, but widespread. And there's still a lot of kind of ignorance on the topic and especially on an official side, like you will see I have some friends and maybe have kids and the vegan families and so they're raising their kids began and like they face a lot of backlash despite going to vegan nutritionist and like taking so much care for the kids kind of nutrition more than the average parent because you have to be hyper careful and still to get so much backlash. So I think I know that veganism is actually one of the best options for the health as well even though that wasn't necessarily what brought us to veganism. But I don't think that's really known initially Andalan think most efficient lists are open to to eat yet and easily.
Jim Moore 9:08
It's fascinating. I definitely want to get more into like Italian culture and so on and so forth. I've had one experience that absolutely corroborates what you're you're talking about when I went to Milan a few years ago and asked for something vegan and what I got wasn't.
Bianca 9:23
I actually went to Milan which is in cities, it's a little bit better because of course, there's more tourism and maybe more vegans and things like that. I went to Milan last year and we needed to find a place my mom was working there and we needed to find a place to eat after she finished working for our whole family. My sister struggled a little bit to eat kind of gluten and things like that. So we needed to find a place that was okay for like omnivores, vegans, ideally gluten free options. And that was close to where she was working. So I find these days and it seemed quite good. It seemed like it had a few options. Making the kind of like you like what His thing was. And so just do not ask 1000 questions just ask the waitress. Do you know? Can you tell me like which? Which dishes are vegan? And she was like, um, Egon maybe the Caesar salad. I was like fine, I'm just gonna go for homeless
Jim Moore 10:25
Oh, fascinating stuff did Julio, how about you? What was your What was your journey into veganism? Like I imagine there was there was some real parallels with bankers but yeah, be good to good to hear.
Giulio 10:36
Yeah, I guess in many ways, it was very similar to Bianca because we were already living together. And well, eating together, it would say every meal, alright. So the journey was very similar. As Bianca said, I did start maybe a bit before Bianca just because she was on that like, eating plan kind of died. So she had to eat very specific things. While I didn't. I never really liked meat particularly or dairy or eggs. I've never been really enthusiastic about his products. So for me was great. Some big interesting about me like my favourite foods in the world is lentils. I would eat lentils, like every day. So for me, it wasn't a big shock. I've always been into these kind of things. Yeah, and just basically, when Bianca was in the eating that things I just literally hated it. It just like the smell having them in the house. It was really a struggle and really enjoyed having like my own diet and my own things. And yeah, and since then, we're really like, never looked back and, and loved it ever since.
Jim Moore 11:44
Forgive me if I've missed the chronology, but had you both moved over to the UK by this point?
Giulio 11:49
Oh, yeah. So we moved to the UK in 2016 I think? Yeah. 2016. And we started the business in 2018. We went vegan in 2018. So late 2018. So yeah, the business was started in February 2018. And we went fully vegan, I would say September, October 2018. Roughly. So that's yeah, that's the timeline. So we had been living in the UK for over a couple years already. And we were already kind of living in a bit of a vegan bubble at the time, which was great. And it is something that I think both of us really love about living in the UK, that we still do live in an amazing vegan bubble, like most of the people we know are very similar in that to us, which is great. And I always think that, for example, like both of us coming in from Italy, like in Italy, you couldn't have that kind of bubble like it wouldn't exist. And it's amazing to live in a country where you have so many options, especially right now that we live, kind of because of the business. And we'll talk about it, I guess more in depth later, but because because of the business we live between Cambridge and the Netherlands, mainly and both countries are amazing for vegan food. And we'd really love that there are like two countries where if you feel like having kebab or sushi or anything, you will find a vegan version of it. And it's just amazing.
Jim Moore 13:19
Yeah, actually, I've heard very good I've not actually been to the Netherlands since being vegan, but I've heard I've heard very good, very good things about their sort of their, their vegan options over there.
Giulio 13:29
Yeah, and the variety is just amazing. Literally, you can find anything you can think of, you would find the vegan version. It just makes it so easy even for people that are not normally vegan, just like to reduce their intake of animal products. It just makes it so easy because you find really valid high quality, easy to access alternatives. And that's really great.
Jim Moore 13:54
It sounds like for both of you that the sustainability piece has obviously been a passion for a long time. And the there's been a massive crossover with that. And veganism was was the kind of initial seeds of inspiration for veganism. Was it always about sustainability, at least in the first instance, for both of you,
Giulio 14:13
I think for both of us was mainly sustainability because we did. So since our undergrad, we were really interested in sustainability. And four, we came to the UK for a Master's I did my masters in 2016. And Danka. And twit started in 2017. And both of us studied musical sustainability and environmental policy. So we're both really interested in sustainability. And in our studies, we basically came to realise and that's something that I guess like every person who studies these things at some point you come across data on on the impact of like animal agriculture and BT heavy diets and you just see the numbers and see how detrimental it is to the environment, and how very little changes can cut very dramatically. Greenhouse gases emissions and other forms of pollution. And I think both of us thought like if you could achieve that level of change with such a small personal change, because if you think of the marginal impact of switching from dairy milk to oat milk, in terms of tastes, they wouldn't be huge impact, but for example, from an environmental point of view will be a huge impact. And there are so many other sides to it. But that's just one. And both of us, I would say, approached it first through the sustainability point of view. But from there, from there, we kind of got really interested in in the whole movements. And it just became, we just became interested in every side of it over time, but yeah, that was definitely the first step for both of us.
Bianca 15:49
Yeah, I would say that sustainability was definitely the thing that brought us to reduce our animal products consumption. So to switch to oatmeal, very early on, we were still eating some dairy products, but at the same time, we're also using vegan cheese for a long time, and things like that. So do you think that was the thing that triggered wanting to reduce her animal product consumption being mostly plant based, but then I think going from mostly plant based to vegan was more about kind of like the animal rights side, because I do think from a sustainability point of view, you know, mostly plant based, we're honestly eating, I would say, like, he was sent pump A's, all the been put henchy, like, you know, pretty good, pretty good for our sustainability point of view. But I do think that that is suited to going fully to get it also not just plant based diet, which is very good, but like not exactly the same thing as, as being fully vegan. I think that the ethos and the philosophy and the lifestyle was most of going vegan was definitely I think, for me, and I think we do as well, mostly for the client, ethical, or right side.
Giulio 17:06
If I can add something, something that I think people sometimes forget when we talk about veganism and why people get into veganism, is that it's so much more than a diet, of course, and to community that you find. It's just amazing. Like, all of the people we we hang out with, that we got, you know, with the business, we just found a lot of like really amazing people in a great community of people that stuck with us over the years. And yeah, we just really laughed the whole community and a whole movement around it.
Bianca 17:38
Yeah, I definitely think that, for me, one of the things that was kind, like the obstacle at first was that I had this idea of the stereotype of the angry vegan, and that can happen, but I think it's a very small part of the vegan community. It's obviously very loud, which is a problem and not just loud, but also that sometimes, you know, people tend to remember the bad more than the good. So if you know 99 vegans, they're just like really kind and nice people. And then you know, one vegan, that is just like shouting at everyone and not doing just activism, which is great, but actually just being an angry person. And usually those people are angry other vegans as well. Then people are gonna remember that one person. And then I think doing my master, a few people were already vegan in my, in my course. And then I think, by the end of the year, a few other ones, including me went vegan. And I think, meeting can I have a few more vegans and Guinea fewer sugar vegans, I'm kind of chatting with them and ask them questions, really helping to realise that that stereotype is not that representative of the vegan community. And I think one thing that is interesting about me that Judah was mentioning that he really likes lentils, and beans and stuff like that. I was not like that. I was like, huge, despite being lactose intolerant. I was a huge cheese lover. And I really liked always my whole life red meat. And these two things were also two things that I shared a lot with my mom who also really loved red meat, and also really liked cheese, which I think was again a bit of an obstacle for me at first because it felt like it was kind of like, be trained that but I was a huge vegan refuse cheese low cheese lover. And it used to love meat. And despite that, not regretted anything once gone. I will never go back. So, you know, there's different people and I think there's hope for everyone. I always say if I can go vegan, I'm sure that anyone that wants to can.
Jim Moore 19:42
And 100% is getting getting easier and easier. Right so well depending on where you are, but certainly in the UK and absolut and Netherlands by the sounds of it. Also also getting easier and lots of options and so on so forth, even if your palate is not quite as attuned to lentils as Stelios You mentioned earlier Bianca about your bit of nerves around the the the talking about it with your family and and sharing the Conner journey we're on and so on. For both of you, how did how did that land when you sort of finally kind of sounds like it's almost like, you know, coming out of a closet, but like, you know, when you find, do you know what we're, this is what we this is how we eat now. And this is how we live,
Bianca 20:26
literally as someone that after being vegan came out as bisexual, it was harder to come out as vegan to my family really. Because food against sometimes you've always make fun of like Italians getting angry of food. But I think what people sometimes don't understand is that food is a really big part of our cultural identity. And also kind of how you share in a way, love. So we usually always have meals together at the table, it's considered quite rude to have something different and disabled from what everyone else is eating. And like sharing family recipes or cooking together or preparing meals together is really big part, I think. And also just like cooking things that you love for people that you love is really the power of social interactions as well. And so yeah, when I told my mom, she did kind of like, freak out a little bit, we used to make together like Christmas dinner and stuff like that. So at first she was she had a very, very strong negative reaction. But after that after that initial reaction, she's been amazing also, because she actually loves vegetables. So most of our meals would basically be a vegan meal. And then maybe she put some cheese on the pasta or sheets, something on the side. So when I go back to Rome, for most of the meals, she doesn't even have to change that much. You just add the cheese to her passing or plate instead of on the main bowl. And she's basically actually more of the things that she likes. She loves vegetables than before, because it was quite a picky eater. So India at the beginning, I think for me was a bit hard. With my mother, my mother's reaction not being being a bit of I will say yeah, excessive, but I know where it was coming from it was coming from the fact that we shared a lot of things that came through foods that were not vegan together. But after that, it's actually been really nice and we call them go for Christmas sweetie in the end, this past year, you're in turn turn one, but when we were planning to she was going to do a mostly vegan dinner. So there will be also non vegan things too part of the things but most of the things will be vegan so that we could all have the same food or like planning together what to eat. Quite nice.
Jim Moore 22:44
That's really fascinating that actually what what your mum was nervous of was losing the connections the family ties the the memories almost more rather than worried about your health or thinking that you know, ethically was the wrong decision or any of these kinds of things. It was like I get all of that but the the family stuff is is crucial and it's just great to hear like that being overcome, overcome as well I think is really, you know, hopefully people listening in the same kind of boat. I guess pinning it down to the fact that it's the family bit that is the loss and actually that can be over overcome. That's just you know, I think it's a great story.
Giulio 23:30
And I think Julia Yeah, I think on my side it was more of what we were talking about it was more of the health sides because I think I didn't have the same kind of thing with my family where food was such an important thing. It is definitely like an occasion to like spend time together but it's it was always less about the food and more about just like hanging out with the family so I feel like most of my family didn't really care that much by my mom whom I'm really close with she she was really worried about my health and I guess sometimes she still is even though like do like blood tests like even regularly just to show my mom okay, like I'm doing great my health is perfect. But yeah, sometimes she is she she still worries about my health and every time I have the slightest health issue like am I feeling well for like two days? I was like, yeah, maybe you should you should eat some bread be like that's probably not the solution. But yeah, and I feel like my family what was a bit different is that I think they never really like understood. And that's definitely something that I have worked on and tried to get them to understand, but I think they still think and see me being vegan as other if it's something about social pressure, but basically what they think is that if I was in a darkroom by myself, I would eat it. That's a good thing. It's like if someone is no one's looking, I would eat meat. To try to get him to understand like, That's not the thing like if I was the last person in the world, and I was alone, I was still not eat meat. Like that's not the reason why I'm not eating meat. It's not because I don't want people to see me eating meat. And that's something that they have struggled on. It's still sometimes it was like, Do you maybe want an egg like one look
Jim Moore 25:19
I won't tell any of your friends,
Giulio 25:23
they were telling them and then they still try. But I think I was worried as well before going vegan, because as Becky was saying it is it is definitely frowned upon in Italy, wherever you go, it's not as easy and the social stigma is massive. It's completely different from countries like here or the Netherlands where it's seen as a more normal kind of progressive thing. But so like normal thing in Italy, like we've been like insulted in restaurants like multiple times, when you ask for a vegan, like we were once with, with Bianca in a pizza place. This is fun story, a pizza place near my hometown. So I come from a small town on the East Coast, very conservative area. Not the best for vegans. Definitely. And we went to this pizza place, they had loads of vegan options, not marked as vegan, but like, just like white pizza with not sauce, right, just too much of it. And we didn't say anything. And my mom said some like mentioned that you're vegan. And the waitress said something like, like my cousin used to be vegan as well. But then she had to stop because we're not meant to leave that way. Stuff like that. Visibly seen that you're not healthy. And we're not just meant to leave like that. And yeah, you do see that thing a lot in Italy that you kind of get insulted. People get mad. And that's funny about the stereotype of like, the angry vegans that is really a thing in Italy like people imagine vegans are just like, angry people always complaining about everything. And from our experience, it was quite the opposite. It's usually whenever you go and if you asked you have something that is like suitable for vegans, people will literally like shout at you be very mad about it, where you literally just asked if you have something for vegan so the serotype seems to definitely go the other way around. But yeah, I would definitely tell people like not to worry too much about families and in our cases are very, two very different families and still got around to accepting it and understanding it. And it's been a few years now, but I don't really feel any pressure anymore. Like when I go home, I know there's gonna be something for me. In most cases, if not, I'm just gonna make something for myself, I need something very simple and plain. But it's it can be an obstacle, but it's it's usually not a huge one, I think like people will understand.
Jim Moore 27:47
I totally relate to that idea that every time you have the slightest cold, or anything wrong with you at all.
Giulio 27:55
Definitely, your vegan
Jim Moore 27:59
must be that. And as if eating a steak or something is going to be some kind of magical elixir that will prevent you getting colds. Yeah, exactly. It's an odd mindset
Giulio 28:12
me like we like, of course, I'm not a medical expert, but we've been vegan for years now. And literally every time with Vanguard I did any health checks and bought tests, it always be like your perfect health, everything is completely perfect. So I mean, like, What can I say? Like I think we we have we follow a plant based diet, and we're in really good health and have really no reason to believe that it wouldn't be great for health. And we do feel much better than we did before. And yeah, I mean, from the evidence we see ourselves. It is great for health, as well.
Bianca 28:50
And I think also we're not necessarily the healthiest eagles in the sense that
Jim Moore 28:55
Oh, me neither.
Bianca 28:57
Yeah, like we do like our, you know, vegan substitutes. We're not always like super careful. But do take happens. We take our multivitamin, and for vegans, and then like an Omega three. But apart from that we're not you know, between work and everything. It's like we're not spending a lot of time thinking what we can balance me and it's still been completely fine. I've actually donated blood two weeks ago, and they were checking my IRA and we're like, oh, this is perfect. It's like really, really good iron levels of like, I don't even take iron supplements.
Jim Moore 29:36
There you go. I mean proofs in the pudding. Right? I love that. I want to get on to zero waste path. But I have a question. I guess that probably surrounds it leads into it a little bit. But it's just a question around your your kind of formal education in the sustainability piece. I asked because I'll ask this question first and then I'll sort of give you a kind of a bit of the context for why So I'm interested as to whether veganism or plant based diets or anything surrounding diet was something that was squarely talked about in those kind of formal settings. And I asked for the for the reason that whether I've spoken to kind of doctors people in who've been through similar kind of education passes yourselves in terms of sustainability. Wherever I see formal education, even if there is a very clear direct link with plant based diets, it almost is either at best skirted around or at worst, flatly denied by that kind of institutions that there is any positive link with with with veganism or plant based diets in the case of nutrition and so on.
Bianca 30:47
Yeah, actually,
in my experience.
Yeah, no, it was not very much it was mostly I think the people, your Wes, and like your classmates, more than the actual institution, I think one of my courses was on climate change, specifically, kind of from a scientific point of view, and then there was a lecture on how to reduce kind of like, your impact or different pathways to reduce emissions. And when they talked about animal agriculture, the things that came up with were killing cows sooner, so they have less time to have emissions, breeding specific types of cows that basically just fart a little bit less. And just a lot of like, really weird solutions were just like, No eat, though. So I think was mostly the environment we both found in University of like meeting other vegetarian and vegan people. And then kind of like through that. And I think a lot also through the zero waste movement, more than the actual, at least for me more than the actual university, talking about kind of like producing or cutting out animal products from your diet.
Giulio 32:04
Yeah, I think I did feel the same about that. So during my master's here, at Cambridge, like I, when I first got here was a master about basically sustainability, environmental policy. And I did expect people and everyone involved to have like a different view on these things, and a different like openness about these things. But basically, whenever you talk about reducing emissions, even more so a few years ago, people never wanted to talk about diets and how diets are really important part of reducing emissions, I find that people are very into talking about plastics, for example, which is very relevant to our business as well. But it's much easier to tell people don't use plastic or reduce your plastic use or single use plastics. But diets several was been more controversial. For some reason. The bait, something very funny of the like, every time I went to university events and stuff like that, there will never be anything vegans like any vegan options. Remember, once my first year of my PhD, we went to like a department events, the event that my department like most people work on, like climate change and similar topics. And there were no vegan options like nothing at all in the whole place that we had to eat, like bread and tomatoes, like both dank. And I will literally like, sitting down eating like just bread and
Bianca 33:33
like to find out the tomatoes were decorative.
Giulio 33:37
Yeah, they were declarative. And it was basically what we managed to eat that day. And that I've always find that surprising. But I think in the past few years, it's something that has become mainstream in like universities and like more institutional settings as well. There is a research group at Oxford that works on this mainly like impact of diets, on reducing emissions. And there's a lot of peer reviewed literature right now on how changing diets basically, is very important to reducing emissions. And I think it is growing and becoming a bit more mainstream. But I feel like in this edition settings, like people, and everything tends to be very traditional still. And people don't seem to want to talk about these things.
Jim Moore 34:25
Is it like it's an easier message to not talk about it. So he's just we'll stick with plastic straws. Yeah, yeah, heads around that. Yeah.
Giulio 34:32
And even. I mean, like, it's a very complex thing to talk about. But I've seen, like writing and working in this field, that it's very easy for both people and politicians to try and blame big corporations which are definitely to blame. But there is a tendency to focus all the blame on on one party and trying to move attention away from individual choices. Just because it's difficult to tell people what to do or what to eat, it's people don't usually like that. So we tend to shift blame on the one side just to Yeah, you see that a lot. But I think it is changing again. And it's becoming more understood that it's important to play with to blame. But it's also important to try and do all we can, especially if it's small things that do have a really big impact. By validating essentially,
Jim Moore 35:32
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Bianca 36:39
The way I see it is that it is the Hurley, business world and the corporations and the governments that have are the ones that have the main responsibility because they have the most power to create change. And very often having changed on an individual level, it's not necessarily accessible or possible if the rest of these things don't really happen. So the way I see it more is that at individual level, it's not necessarily have, you should feel laying but more that you have, you should feel empowered to make decisions. And like the blame is still most definitely where the power is. But then you can feel empowered in actually making changes that do make a difference. For example, with zero waste when I moved to the UK. Again, like a little bit over five years ago, I joined the journey to zero waste UK group. And we were I think around 60 people. And that was the first year zero was shot in the UK that just opened I think it was in Devon. And now today you see supermarkets talking about reducing plastic and 1000s of serious businesses and shops and the group. I think the last time I checked had 40,000 people. So individual changes do make a difference. And yes, individuals are not the ones that have the most responsibility. But you still have some power, because both politics and businesses in the end are interested in doing something that satisfies their customers or their voters. So if when they see a shift, then they will follow and it shouldn't be the ones to follow, they should be the ones taking the lead. But for I don't think there's a huge hope of that happening quickly enough. Elson necessarily prefer corporations to not be part of the sustainable future. But we do azendoo does have the option to make changes. Of course not everything, not everyone. But there will always I think the some things that you can do there are easy for every lifestyle and every person. So even if you can't do everything, especially for example, when it comes to zero waste, you don't have I don't like the idea that zero waste means actually not creating any waste. I think Zero Waste is more about the way you approach things. It's more about, again, a philosophy in a way. So regardless of how much physical waste you create, at the end of the month, or at the end of the year, you can have zero waste approached things, which means just like wondering when you really need something, trying to see if there's a better option that is available in your area or in your budget. It doesn't mean having to do everything perfectly. And so I do think those individuals we do have always power to do certain things and they can be different and the amount of things that you can do can be different for each person, depending on what is your situation. But I feel like sometimes the conversations around climate change and sustainability are catastrophic, which they should be, but don't put much effort or enough effort upon what you can do. To not feel so powerless to not feel so kind of abandoned introduce like inevitable, horrible future
Jim Moore 40:02
absolutely like it's, you're so right that I think that just that kind of the kind of sense of impending doom that comes with some of the the messaging around that whilst it is absolutely required to some extent that it can have the impact of sort of feeling quite paralysing to folks. Well, you know, well, what's the point in me going vegan? What's the point of me reducing my waist? Because, you know, there's there's far bigger forces at play that I can't control or can't influence. And I think if you hear something that's a threat to us, we have kind of two options with it. Right? We can either throw our hands up and say, well, there's nothing we can do, or we or we can, we can sort of positively look at what we can do. And so yeah, I'm with you on that. I think you may almost be may as well, if you can, if that's if that's the view, then why not do everything
Bianca 40:57
you can, there was actually a really, I think there's a really fun. I mean, I don't know exactly how to call it that was going around for a while on social media, there was basically, I don't remember it word by word, I have a terrible memory. But it was basically around the someone talking to you to like, a bunch of people or like a conference or something like that. And they're like, but what is the point is like reducing our emissions and doing things more sustainably and blah, blah, if maybe it's gonna be all for nothing is like, trying to point out the fact that yes, even if you do these things, and maybe, maybe they're not going to be enough, but you're still gonna have improved, you're still gonna have done things that are better. And this, I think, was mostly talking about climate change denial, or like, even if you don't believe in climate change, you know, if we rely more on renewable energy, then we're gonna have more energy in the future, we're gonna have more energy independence. If we have more sustainable and local options, that's still going to be better for the local economy, it's still going to be a smarter way to use a resources like might as well do it.
Jim Moore 42:02
Yeah. 100% 100%. Let's talk about zero waste paths, because we feel like we're kind of there. Right? So how did you both go about finding the business? And what is zero waste path for folks who've not come across you both?
Giulio 42:16
Well, so basically, first of all, zero waste path is a sport brands, producer, maker of zero waste, toiletries, and as the haircare and body care products, what we try to do differently with zero waste path. Since the since when we started, we tried to create products that were fully sustainable, fully transparent from the very beginning of the production process to the way they're shipped. So it's not just a nice, so packed in a nice, like cardboard packaging, but every the whole process is thought and designed in a way to make it as sustainable as possible. So for example, one last example is will your ingredients, let's say coconut oil, we receive it in this like five, no, well, not well received some ingredients in buckets in this like white plastic buckets. And what we do is that we just empty them, use them, wash them, and then send them back or bring them back to our supplier. And they just reuse them and send them again. So basically, there is no waste created in in the, in the way we received ingredients. So that's what we tried to do different and zero waste path. And the way it's done Danka can probably say more about it. But the way it started, it was very strange year in 2018, I was kind of working on and off bank, I was singer masters. And I feel like both of us wanted to try and do something different with our lives. In a way we had this strange idea of trying to make soap. And so we started looking into it got a few books, we started reading about it. So we've been really interesting the whole process. So at some point, we decided let's just go and try and create this for business. We started with all of the savings we had at a time and there were like 200 pounds and have like 800 pounds like loan from from gas mom for like safety assessments with is like very small investment. And we started our business produce our first batch of soap, which was like 24 soaps, I think or 20 soaps. And from there we started growing and growing like very slowly and very organically and over time that we moved. We were at the time we were living in Edinburgh, we started in our kitchen, using a spare bedroom as like soap storage. And then we moved to Cambridge when I started my PhD and we rented a house with a garden shed, and we use the shed for around the year producing everything in the sheds. And after a year, the business was big enough to move into business unit. So that we rented a business unit, which is where Bank A is and then a year after we rented the one Amen And last year, we also started a small office in the Netherlands, where we shipped to the EU. So after Brexit, we were having quite a few problems with like international shipping. So we started another small office in the Netherlands where that we used to basically ship around Europe. And yeah, caca wants to add something about what we do and why we do it.
Bianca 45:25
Yeah, so at the time, we had been trying to lead zero waste for around two years. So we already were making some of our own products, we of course needed to expand the range a little bit more if we wanted to sell to other people, because once so once you do and what you learned was and also because we were like, at the time, we hadn't really thought about potentially selling wholesale to stockists, we did want to appeal to a slightly bigger range so that people could get several products from us as opposed to having to buy something from us and something from someone else etc, etc. And having several shipping shipments. But yeah, we would like to say we got a loan from my mom 800 euros so a little bit less. Because practice medics you need this because medic safety assessor neutral like 10 pages long, like chemistry will report on your recipe, whether it's in line at the time with EU because medic laws, which are actually so the same as the UK, so now will be like UK as well separately, which are necessary to sell cosmetics or not even if you give away cosmetics for free to anyone like basically anytime you release cosmetic products, which would be from soap, to makeup to moisturisers anywhere to the public to ensure that they're safe, you need to have safety, especially assessments which are quite expensive. And we looked at getting a loan of a bank, but we couldn't get in the UK because we hadn't lived here long enough. And we tried to get to the UK and in Italian bank, but there were like the main window gave I think was like 2000 euros and like crazy interest rates. So my mum in the end accepted to loan us the money that we repaid back in first 10 months, like if it was a normal loan paying monthly. But yeah, I like that we were able to start in without having to have a huge investment. I think that was one of the people opportunities we had in the UK, were things I think a little bit more as more business friendly from that point of view. And then yeah, for the first year that we were in Cambridge, Judah was starting his PhD, I was doing all the products on my own from the shed and then slowly to cover the rest of the house. And then we move to the unit, which was a really, really big change, we hired our first employee. And that's when things started to improve a little bit. Because the year that we're working from home and the half a year before that in Edinburgh, to be honest, it was quite tough. We're trying to get the business to a more sustainable, like human sustainable point for us as well as quickly as possible. So that we could, you know, get an income and maybe like work promo hours. And so that year, we often work seven days a week, or six or seven days a week. And so it was quite tough mentally and especially because it was so intense, we didn't have a lot of time for social life. And so between the amount of work, the lack of time for socialising is quite tough mentally. And things improved when we move to the to the business unit. And then of course, last year was a bit of a difficult year between Brexit and COVID I think it was quite a tough year for everyone, businesses, people. So we did open the space in the Netherlands, because otherwise we'll have to basically abandon the EU market. And we didn't really want to do that, especially as European immigrants it felt really weird to like not be able to sell to our own country and more that literally our families wouldn't be able to get the products except when we went back to Italy, in person. But yeah, I will say for us, the thing was because we were sustainable customers JD was kind of like how to create what will be our dream business for us the dream products for us. I think that was really helpful to already be part of that world as customers and has often been I feel because we do know that sustainability is zero waste and vegan movements from personal experience as well. Yeah, we just tried to we're nowhere near perfection, we do still create waste. There are still things we wish we could do differently. You know, you have limited options and sometimes limited resources. But the point for us was to always try to be equally sustainable and ethical behind the scenes as with the final product. And so that's why we're trying to do things that are waste, trying to find local suppliers being certified for you living wage employer because that's a big part of sustainability people sometimes forget is the social rights side and the human rights side. And so having Fair, fair working conditions, I think, is a very essential part of that.
Giulio 50:16
It also things like being real, introspect transparent about about what it means to have a business and what it means to be a sustainable business. Because I think sometimes, brands try to only show like the nice side, the final product, the cool, sustainable product. And we wanted to kind of break that cycle a bit and show what's behind it, how you receive ingredients, how we try to become more sustainable, and find more sustainable ways to do things. Still, in an imperfect way, like trying to be real, and show people what it means to try and be a sustainable business to stays where you work in a system that kind of works against you. Because it's extremely hard to be a sustainable business, even with like growing awareness. And things are slowly changing, but it's still very hard. Whenever you're something you have to like, try in every possible way and email them and try to get them to send things plastic free is always extremely hard. You always have to, like take responsibility for like, if something, anything happens to the shipment, and there is no plastic, then you have to be fully responsible, because you asked to have that plastic. There's like so many little things involved. But yeah, we wanted to have a business, that was our dream business. So we really do things, and all the people that we work with, we all do things the way we want a zero waste product to be. So there's a real effort in every step of the way. If there's anything we can do to go like the extra mile to make something a bit better, we always do it. We never compromise on like the quality of ingredients, or the way we manufacture things. As Doug was saying, like living wage and trying to have our employees treated in the best possible way and have them as happy as as we possibly can. Yeah, that's that's what we always try to do. It's always fun.
Jim Moore 52:17
Well, kudos to both wanting an incredible mission to set up a set of yourselves on and, and, and, you know, I think the it's really interesting when we talk about the the holistic sense of this sort of zero waste movement and sustainability and so on and thinking about sustainability, not just from the the end product, but the, you know, the full supply chain, the all the humans involved in the in the supply chain, including yourselves, including any employees. And you know, I think it's really fascinating. And I imagine it's a very competitive space, because telling that story and helping people to understand that in a world of big companies who are greenwashing and ultimately, so saying, here's the end product, and isn't it great and the buzzword of sustainable without the meaning behind? It must be really tough to make sure that you're, you're telling that full story to your your potential kind of customer base, if you like, yeah. How has that been? For you?
Giulio 53:20
Yeah, I think that it is very hard to communicate what you are, what you do, and why sometimes prices are higher than people would like. But something Dan can I always agreed on is that we didn't want to have a sustainable product, that to be sustainable, and low price, we would have to like exploit people or take shortcuts, we never wanted to do that. So we're always trying to create a product that is sustainable, but every other thing about it is as good as the sustainability aspect. We always thought that for a product to be sustainable. He cannot exploit people. He cannot take shortcuts, he cannot use bad ingredients. And yeah, that's that's what we tried to do. It is very hard. In a as you were saying it's a very competitive world. A lot of businesses are entering will see the Zero Waste sustainability markets have a lot of greenwashing of businesses that literally just get a product the exact way it was 10 years ago, and they just put it in like a cardboard or like unbleached cardboard wrapper, and that's sustainable. And that does happen, especially with like bigger brands that entered the sustainability sustainability market just because it's a growing sector and there is more money in it. And there was years there was years ago. And yeah, and that's that's always a big challenge. But yeah, thank What do you think?
Bianca 54:49
Yeah, I think that in the UK in some ways. Well, the past year has been hard but on average compared to our experience needs to be I think there's a bigger push to see supporting local economies and local businesses, sometimes I find that it's a little bit better in the UK. But it's definitely hard because, well, on one side, maybe what we have realised, what we know is that we're not missing, maybe always the best portraying the message in the most effective way. Because I am a bit, I talk a lot, and I get lost in details. I am a person that loves lists and things like that. So sometimes maybe there's too much information that that we share at once, to make it really easily understandable. But also, like, not everyone, I think the zero sports people will be on average, more interested in knowing more about like the process and the business and all of the things and we'll do more research, as opposed to like impulse buys and stuff like that. But maybe a lot of, you know, still a lot of people want. And so maybe the thing that makes you different doesn't always come across. Luckily, if I can say I do think our products are good quality, so And we've had good feedback on actually how they work and the quality. So very often, that's more the drive for most people. But yeah, I find one of the things I actually find quite interesting is that we have this son shampoos that I developed two and a half years ago, approximately. And a lot of people have told us like, yeah, which include mercy can be quite hard. So there was saying like, Yeah, this is so much better than others because of pride. And I know why that might be. Because there's different types, and some, some, some are harder to use than others. But some people have also told us this is the best shampoo I've ever used, compared to the good ones as well. And apart from of course, being very pleased, I found that quite interesting, considering you know, this is just me with no kind like, degree specifically on cosmetology on my own, trying to develop the product X, I didn't one hour of consultancy to understand better which ingredients are truly sustainable. And that was it against these huge companies that have entire research laboratories and so much money. And to be honest, I think that the reason why they're good is not because I'm a genius, but because we simply try to reduce good ingredients. So for us, it's always about trying to balance, quality, sustainability, which means also the ethical side and final price. So when we can't really go too low on the price without having to reduce the suitability or quality, then what we try to do is creating products that either last a very long time or are multi purpose. So that then kind of the total budget that you spend maybe in a year on your toiletries is a bit more similar to what you would have spent with conventional products. So we do try to balance the three. But of course, right now as your waste and sustainability are becoming very trendy. And so sometimes you'll see a lot of big companies just jumping on the bandwagon and having not very good products in terms of formulation as well. Not really much about them being sustainable, except for maybe the packaging. And of course they have much more of marketing money outlets, that that can really make them win on the market.
Giulio 58:30
And something else that I forgot to mention that is kind of newish and interesting about what we do is that all the products that come in a non paper packaging, so for example deodorants to come in a tin or latest product or candles that come in a glass jar. With all of this products, we actually want and incentivize customers to bring the packaging back. We can wash them, sterilise them and use them again. We always thought there is really like no reason to just sell a deodorant in a tin and have that team just being thrown away after one use. And we pay kind of I mean, we pay customers back, given given them a discount if the return teens or jars. So we tried to be surplus in that way as well. Trying to minimise the amount of like our packaging gets just wasted and thrown out.
Bianca 59:21
Yeah, and the only reason we can do that was because we have had some times customers asking if they could return the cardboard boxes. And the reason we can do that is that of course they cannot be sterilised and washed. But with all of the other packaging, yes, you could be recycled. We do always use you generate like glass metal or recycled cardboard. But recycling is still energy intensive. And you don't always know if it's going to happen even though with metal and glass it usually happens more often. And paper as well. Yeah. But you know, we're using it directly. That's so much better. And at the moment, we can't cover the costs of shipping the items back to us. So what we do is we try to give him discounts are like, if you return more than one, then you got to get a bigger discount. Some of our stock is also a part of the scheme. And so you can return the packaging to them and get a discount from them so that we try to make incentivize it so that even if you maybe have to pay for shipping, the discount, you get back between those several packages will be higher than that. And things like that, again, being a small business, not necessarily have the network to be able to maybe offer free returns and things like that. But we definitely believe in kind of the circularity of packaging in this case, and that it's much better to just use it even though it's a lot of work. And not very economically, like smart in some ways. Like it's much cheaper to just like buy the packaging than to get it returned. Give the discount wash it, sterilise it, but we think it's worth it.
Giulio 1:00:53
And it's funny that every time we go see stockists for different reasons, sometimes we end up in like our stocking shop, they always give us like this boxes of to bring back to even this like last fall, we were in Italy, we visited a couple of us soccer's and both times they just loaded our van, like tends to bring back, though. I mean, we're always happy to do it. And as Bianca was saying, it is a weird world where we actually incentivize not to do that. It's always cheaper to just throw it away and buy a new one. And that I think that's where part of our problem is like, economically doesn't make a lot of sense. And that shouldn't be the case. But we're still like, always happy to do it when we can
Jim Moore 1:01:37
you're fighting against the system. There's no set up correctly. Really, you know, when you when you look at it, yeah,
Giulio 1:01:42
yeah, I guess it's the same with like a lot of things. Like if you think of like travelling on a plane versus a train like that, usually planes are like 1/4 of the price of a train trip. But that's just like a wrong system of incentives that just you're fighting against, in a way.
Yeah, absolutely.
Bianca 1:01:59
And I think this is very relatable for vegans, because so many times even products are more expensive, because a lot of for example, dairy products have actual economic incentives from the state that bring the prices down. And so I think it's quite relatable from an individual level as well, when you're trying to live sustainably or you're vegan, that you feel like you're constantly working against the system and fighting against the system. And it can be quite, I think, at times frustrating, because it's like, I'm literally doing what I'm supposed to do to make the future and the planet better for all of us. And, and then you feel like you constantly have everything against it, it's like why. But again, I think it's important to focus on the results that you get, because I think it can always be a little bit overwhelming both with veganism and sustainability, to then notice that the rest of the world sometimes can be a bit, you know, not really listening to you. So we do try to focus on the results we have on our website, collect plastic bottles saved, which basically be we consider like one plastic packaging for each item we have produced as plastic saved. So for example, deodorant, it's a 10. And usually will often come in a plastic tube. So it's not necessarily literally a bottle, but I'm usually a very big perfectionist. So I tried to make it simple. And very often, we'll probably save more than one bottle like shampoo bars, but we try to say the minimum who will say that I think that can be really a big incentive for us. And we hope also for the customers to see that even as a really small business, with relatively few customers compared to their big brands, we've been able to create a difference and our customers have been able to create a difference. And I think that can be a really good driving force to continue against This is
Jim Moore 1:03:59
that time is getting on. But I actually want to give you the opportunity to tell folks where to go about finding you at zero waste path and picking up some incredible products the next time that they're looking for shampoos and toiletries and so on so forth. But but one thing just really strikes me and just take the opportunity to say to both of you the thought and and care that's that's clearly gone into this this series of products and this business is phenomenal. You can you can just sense it that every angle has been thought about and considered from a sustainability standpoint, from an ethical standpoint. And, you know, as a potential consumer, it does fill me with confidence. I spoke with somebody recently who's who works in a vegan or she she founded a vegan creative agency. And we got onto this discussion point about exactly as we've just talked about here, but from the other side from her point of view as in a creative agency about How do you fight against the big guys who are you know, quite happily either taking a subsidy in one place to make a product cheaper than a smaller company who's thinking about it from an ethical standpoint, or against somebody who's greenwashing, you know, in their messaging and has lots of advertising budget to throw at something. And she said, something that sort of struck me and it really resonated with talking to you both is that, you know, they can copy like packaging, and they can copy the colour scheme and they can copy this that in the other. But what they can't copy is the attention care and detail that small businesses with the right ethics put put into their their business and their products. That's just unreal. And duplicatable, if you like by these big businesses, they don't want to and they can't, they don't want to do it, they don't want to put the money into it. They don't want to put the time or attention in that some so that folks like yourselves are. So I just wanted to call that out and say, I think you're doing an amazing, amazing work and zero waste path.
Bianca 1:06:05
Thank you. And without opening a huge other topic, because it's been a while already, I'm just going to put it there very quickly. The reason why I as a consumer have changed my mind from the beginning of my zero was journey to wanting a world exactly like it is today. But just like zero waste, or a circular to thinking that it's not really possible to have a sustainable ethical future with the corporations is pretty much what you were saying that when, you know with hazardous conflict, capitalism and big corporations like when you when your biggest focus and the drive and the main, most important thing of your business is to make the maximum amount of money and have the least amount, of course, you will never be able to have the most sustainable or the most ethical options because those will not be the cheapest, and they will not make you the most profit. So that's why I think from an ethical and societal point of view, it's not actually but it's good when you know, there's more, there's more options and it becomes more available. We all enjoy, you know, being able to stop on the motorway and have burger at Burger King that is vegan. But in the long term. While we can enjoy the fact that some things are easier, I think it's important to remember that if you want things to be true to cinema ethical, I think the only way forward will be with local businesses and small businesses and businesses that actually truly care and put sustainability or veganism and ethically ethicality they're gonna have that award. As the main focus is otherwise, you're never going to be able to have the maximum of those things if money has to be maximised and money making has to be maximised. And I'm trying not to try not to go too far, and start another conversation of an hour.
Jim Moore 1:07:51
Not at all, I couldn't have I literally couldn't say that. But myself. So I think you're absolutely right. And what a fantastic place to sort of close out. Where would we go about finding you both zero waste path and picking up some amazing products, and so on, so forth.
Bianca 1:08:07
So we have two websites, one for the UK, which is more probably useful and one for the EU. And it's zero waste path.co.uk, or zero waste. path.eu is your base based in mainland Europe. But we are based in Cambridge. So if there's anyone that is local, you can always also order on our website and collect in person. And otherwise we ship using premium.
Giulio 1:08:33
I'm sorry, last thing, we have a map of all of our sockets. So if you go to websites or waste potluck code at UK, you will find a map with all of our all of the businesses as tocker products in both UK and rest of the world. So if you go there have a look. You might find some like local businesses a soccer product, so you can buy locally. And yeah.
Bianca 1:08:59
And on the map, we also have the online ones so that maybe they have collection, or you can ask them if you can collect so that you can reduce emissions in that case, as well. And all of our sockets are independent businesses. So if you support them, you support them and us so you're supporting to small independent businesses.
Jim Moore 1:09:16
Amazing, awesome stuff. Well, look, thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it, I totally get you are super, super busy. So thank you so much for your time, I'll put links in the show notes to everything we've talked about, from a point of view of the EU site and the UK site, and so on and so forth, and the outputs one specifically for the stockists and so on because I think that's an important one for folks. I love that point about why not support two businesses at the same time. What a great idea. But thank you so much. That's that's all that's left me to say.
Bianca 1:09:48
Yeah. Thank you for having us.
Giulio 1:09:49
Great to be here.
Bianca 1:09:50
Yeah, thank you so much.
Jim Moore 1:09:53
Appreciate it. Bye now.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai